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Microsoft Releases Vista SP2. You Remember Vista, Don’t You?

It used to be a Service Pack release got some press. After all, you’re fixing bugs, tightening security, maybe even adding minor enhancements. But Microsoft’s release of SP2 for Vista has not been touted much out of Redmond.

I almost feel sorry for Microsoft. The “V” word is such poison they can’t use it in their ads, don’t speak much about it in public, and now don’t even say much when they’ve released an SP that will likely continue to make Vista better than its public perception. But perception is everything, and there’s nothing Microsoft can release to fix that.

Mind you, it’s Microsoft’s own fault. Vista’s initial ridicule was well-deserved, with almost no good reviews in the first six months or more after release. Sluggish on even relatively new hardware at the time, with a raft of incompatibilities, too many editions, and too expensive. The issues then were very, very real, and most were of Microsoft’s own doing. Back then perception was in fact reality. I avoided Vista myself for those very reasons.

Sure, 2.5 years later, with hardware more powerful and a couple of SPs under its belt, Vista’s not so bad. But why waste time with it now? What Vista could have been is being released October 22, albeit with a different name.

I won’t buy Windows 7 as a stand-alone product since the RC I’m running on both Macs is good for another nine months. However, I do plan to buy a PC laptop towards the end of the year, which will have Win7 on it.

Vista 2 , now known as Windows 7, is something that I’m definitely planing to buy. Not as my primary OS, of course. However, it will be a huge improvement over Vista 1. It will bring Windows much closer to what OS X is today, but Leopard 2, or Snow Leopard, is tomorrow’s OS and that’s the OS for me.